Homebrew exploits, poorly worded.

Saison Nine Ways.

Do try this at home?

In my preparation for Homebrew Alley 7, I brewed a ten gallon batch of saison and split the wort into two fermentors. One would be a traditional Belgian saison and one, with the addition of a can of cherry puree, would be a cherry saison. I started with the Brooklyn Homebrew recipe kits for the Belgian Saison and Cherry Bomb Saison. The two recipes were not exactly the same, but I combined both grain bills since they were very similar and the kits included hops for bittering and aroma that were very close substitutes for each other. I mashed lowed for attenuation (as is normally done for saisons) at 148F and proceeded to the boil. I added one pound of Domino cane sugar and one pound of Belgian Simplicity Candi Syrup because it was included in the kit. Both batches would test out the new Belle Saison dry yeast, although the recipe kits call for different yeast strains.

I chilled down to 63F, a little lower than I planned, but I also didn’t want to start fermentation too high like brewers tend to do with Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison. (Fermenting warm, sometimes into the 90F range, is used to get the characteristic earthy and spicy flavors out of the yeast.) I allowed fermentation temperatures to free rise to 75F where they stabilized for a day or so, and then I dropped them down to the ambient temperature of 72F. I added the cherry puree after high krausen began to fall and fermentation picked back up again. After about a week I checked the final gravity of each batch. The plain saison was 1.003 and the cherry version was at 0.998 (!!). The plain saison exhibited some cidery flavor I equate with using too much sugar and fermenting warm. It seems other people have experienced similar results, so it may mean this yeast benefits from a slightly higher mash temp (150F+) or possibly an all malt grain bill (meaning no additional sugar added to the boil or fermentor).

I kegged and carbonated the cherry saison. My first impression was that the beer had dried out too much, tasting a bit like wine, and the cherry flavor was almost undetectable. I decided to bump up the body so I boiled 4 oz. maltodextrin with 400mL of water and added it to the keg to bring the gravity up to 1.003. I also dosed it with some cherry extract (~1 oz.) and some lactic acid to give it a bit of bite. So far these efforts haven’t increased its drinkability so I’m going to stash this one in the cellar for a few months and revisit it later on.

I made the experiment even more elaborate by using Mad Fermentationist’s idea and dosing the plain saison with seven different Brett strains at bottling. I used all of the commercially available strains from White Labs and Wyeast as well as some bottle-isolated strains from BKYeast. Choosing so many different strains may not have been the best idea because it only allowed me to have six bottles per strain (I bottled a few extra plain saisons for consumption/tasting). This means I’ll have to schedule when to taste them and stick to that schedule. My plan is to do 3, 6, 9, and 12 month tastings to allow the Brett character to evolve. I will post tasting notes for all nine variations.